Health Care Reform Dashboard

Health Care Reform Dashboard

Charting Developments with the
Affordable Care Act and Beyond

Healthcare

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03/06/2023

Unmuzzled: Time to Attest That No Gags Apply

Summary The Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and the Treasury have issued guidance on how health plans and insurers may attest to their compliance with the anti-gag rules of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA). The Upshot The Bottom Line By December 31, 2023, health plans and insurers must submit an attestation of [&hellip… Continue Reading »
01/09/2023

IRS Finalizes Affordable Care Act Reporting Relief

Since the inception of the annual reporting requirements under the Affordable Care Act for Forms 1094 and 1095, the IRS has been annually extending the deadline for employers to distribute those reports to individuals. In line with prior guidance, the IRS has now issued final regulations that provide for a permanent, automatic 30-day reporting deadline [&hellip… Continue Reading »
08/09/2022

Back and Forth to the Future: HHS Issues Proposed Rules on Nondiscrimination

Summary The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued proposed regulations under the nondiscrimination provisions of Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The proposed rules restore and augment a number of the nondiscrimination requirements in regulations that were published in 2016, but later stripped away in rules published in 2020. The [&hellip… Continue Reading »
02/28/2022

The Element of Surprise – The No Surprises Rules Become a Little Less Predictable

In a Memorandum Opinion and Order issued last week, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Texas vacated significant provisions in the regulations under the No Surprises Act. The order addresses the independent dispute resolution (IDR) process that health plans or providers may initiate to resolve differences about how much a health plan should pay for out-of-network [&hellip… Continue Reading »
10/07/2021

HHS Clarifies Applicability of HIPAA Privacy Rule to COVID-19 Vaccination Status Requests

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released guidance to address how the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy Rule applies to various entities’ requests for information related to an individual’s COVID-19 vaccination status. HHS emphasized that the Privacy Rule applies only to covered entities, including health plans and most [&hellip… Continue Reading »
08/25/2021

Enforcement Delayed Under the New Health Plan Disclosure Requirements

Summary Three federal agencies, the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Treasury, jointly released new FAQs on August 20, 2021, regarding compliance with new health plan disclosure requirements of the Transparency in Coverage Final Rules (TiCFR), the No Surprises Act, and additional transparency provisions under the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA). In the FAQs, [&hellip… Continue Reading »
03/03/2021

A Rolling Extension – New Guidance on Employee Benefit Deadlines

The U.S. Department of Labor issued a notice that addresses how the extension announced last year for certain employee benefit deadlines will apply now that the commencement date for the extension has passed its one-year anniversary. Last spring, the DOL and IRS issued two notices that extended various deadlines for employee benefit plans and their [&hellip… Continue Reading »
03/02/2021

Telehealth Compliance: Don’t Be Complacent During COVID-19

The incremental adoption of telehealth services exploded at the onset of the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE), establishing telehealth as an integral tool for patient care. In efforts to maintain access to health care services and facilitate compliance with public health guidelines designed to slow the spread of COVID-19, regulatory agencies actively encouraged the use [&hellip… Continue Reading »
01/05/2021

New Stimulus Law Seeks to Strengthen Mental Health Parity Compliance

This alert is the latest in a series from our Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation and Health Care Practice Groups about the most recent federal stimulus bill.  We provided an overview of how the law addresses new substantive requirements for health plans and health care providers, see the Health Insurance/Provider Provisions section here.  We addressed [&hellip… Continue Reading »
12/30/2020

New Stimulus Deal: Health Care Cost Transparency Rules

On December 27, 2020, President Trump signed Congress’ most recent stimulus bill into law, covering $900 billion in economic relief for businesses and individuals impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The law addresses new substantive requirements for health plans and health care providers, including new restrictions on non-participating provider billing (so-called “surprise medical bills”), rules related [&hellip… Continue Reading »
12/09/2020

Year-End COVID-19 Considerations for Health and Welfare Plans

Summary COVID-19 has dominated the agenda for health and welfare benefits in 2020. From suspended deadlines to mid-year election changes to enhanced cost-free coverage, the pandemic has resulted in significant changes to the design and operation of many health and welfare plans. As the year comes to a close, employers should consider whether they have [&hellip… Continue Reading »
08/20/2020

Court Issues Injunction Against Revised ACA Nondiscrimination Rules

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York issued an order on Monday (August 17, 2020) that prevented federal rules removing nondiscrimination protections from taking effect. The rules would have removed protections against discrimination based on gender identity and sex stereotyping from the nondiscrimination provision within the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). [&hellip… Continue Reading »
12/04/2019

Health Care & Price Transparency: The Latest

Federal executive agencies recently published two rules, one final and one proposed, aimed at publicizing the various costs associated with health care. A final rule, promulgated by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) via the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), requires hospitals to establish, update, and publish online a list of [&hellip… Continue Reading »
07/02/2019

Executive Order Aims to Enhance Transparency in Health Care Costs and Quality

On June 24, 2019, President Trump signed Executive Order 13877, Improving Price and Quality Transparency in American Healthcare to Put Patients First. This is the President’s third executive order affecting the health care industry. Executive Order 13813 issued in October 2017, set the regulatory agenda for Association Health Plans, Short-Term Limited-Duration Insurance, and Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement [&hellip… Continue Reading »
01/24/2018

Budget Deal Addresses Health Benefit Issues

The Congressional agreement that reopened the federal government for three weeks quietly addressed—at least temporarily—several high-profile issues affecting public and private health benefits. Most significantly, the new appropriations act: Delays the effective date of the so-called Cadillac Tax by two years to 2022. This Affordable Care Act (ACA) provision imposes a 40 percent tax on [&hellip… Continue Reading »
11/15/2017

IRS Prepares to Enforce ACA Employer Mandate

The IRS has announced its intent to begin enforcing the employer-shared responsibility provisions (otherwise known as the employer mandate or pay-or-play provisions) of the Affordable Care Act for the 2015 calendar year. The IRS also published a template letter that it will mail to any applicable large employer (ALE) if it determines the ALE owes [&hellip… Continue Reading »
08/23/2017

Judge Orders EEOC to Reevaluate Wellness Program Regulations

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) must revisit regulations governing employee wellness programs because the agency did not provide adequate supporting information for the rules. In AARP v. EEOC, U.S. District Judge John Bates agreed with AARP—a lobbying group for older Americans—that the EEOC had failed to justify [&hellip… Continue Reading »
08/15/2017

Recess Update on Repeal and Replacement of the Affordable Care Act

The momentary lull in congressional activity on health care provides an opportune time for an update on the efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Following the House of Representatives’ approval of the American Health Care Act on May 4, 2017, the Senate Republican leadership introduced its own version, the Better Care [&hellip… Continue Reading »
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